Hewlett Packard Wins Justmeans Social Innovation 2012 Award for Most Strategic Use of Philanthropic Funds
Hewlett Packard (HP) won this year's prestigious Justmeans Social Innovation Award for Most Strategic Use of Philanthropic Funds for its successful, Early Infant Diagnosis program in Kenya. A new cloud-based system that will speed up the turnaround time for HIV test results for babies in this region, allowing for earlier treatment and ultimately saving lives. Currently, the results of HIV tests are delivered on paper by courier, taking up to three months to arrive in rural areas. Turning this around by using IT - including HP data centres, new database software, real-time analytics and SMS-connected printers - this new system reduces the turnaround time dramatically. Results will be available online and delivered to healthcare workers via SMS-enabled printers in just one to two days.
This HP social innovation win was collaboration in action; it was part of the Early Infant Diagnosis program withClinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI), the Kenyan Ministry of Public Health & Sanitation, and Strathmore University. Together they showed the unique value that multiple stakeholders in public-private partnerships can bring to the table to create a positive impact on society and significantly benefit infant lives in Kenya. In this part of the world, approximately one out of every ten pregnant women is HIV positive. This means that of the 1.3 million children born in Kenya annually, more than 120,000 have HIV-positive mothers. Without intervention, there is a strong 45 percent chance that an infant born to a mother with HIV will become infected.
These organisations designed a social innovation system that uses cloud computing to make test results available in real-time. The high rate of HIV in Kenya means all infants need to be tested for the disease before they are six weeks old, and the country's current process is slow and delayed, reducing the efficacy of life-saving anti-retroviral treatment (ART). ART needs to be started immediately following a diagnosis; an HIV-positive infant who does not receive it has less than a 50 percent chance of living to see his or her second birthday.
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Sangeeta Haindl is a staff writer for Justmeans on Social Enterprise. When not writing for Justmeans, Sangeeta wears her other hat as a PR professional. Over the years, she has worked with high-profile organizations within the public, not-for-profit and corporate sectors; and won awards from her industry. She now runs her own UK consultancy: Serendipity PR & Media.
